大象传媒

My father worked for the Electric Light Company of Bridge Street Northampton, he was exempt from war service because of his job. He was the foreman for Northamptonshire and Buckinghamshire; he was responsible for maintaining the power kiosks that are dotted about the countryside. I was privileged as a child; we ran a car throughout the war because he had to travel throughout Northants and Bucks.

He was a clever man; he had a degree in engineering. When he was young he worked on the construction of the Daventry Radio Station in the 1920s (this was the first broadcasting station in Britain). On Borough Hill, Daventry there was a peculiar, musty smell 鈥� because there were so many grass snakes. When the architect came to do the construction, Dad told him where to put the big aerials to get the best reception, because dad was a radio ham.

During the war he maintained the power supply throughout Northants and Bucks. During this time I can remember him coming home and saying that there was this great big house somewhere that he had cleared out ready for some sort of war work. Since then I have realised that he must have signed the Official Secrets Act because it must have been Bletchley Park. Even the kitchens were cleared out because there were many things that had to be dumped. Dad rescued some lovely art deco sundae dishes, I still have six left.

We lived in Wheatfield Road, Abington (opposite Brittain鈥檚 farm), this had the air raid siren, and it was the ARP and Decontamination Centres. Also there were great big garages for ambulances. The farm is now a community centre.

We had an Anderson shelter in our garden; it was well fitted out by dad. It had bunk beds, and an electric fire. We only used it occasionally. Once we went down at dinner time and dad had to tear back to get the pudding. In the war we only went down there when the bombs were dropping, but in Northampton there weren鈥檛 many raids.

I slept in a bedroom in the house and the air raid siren was just across the road.

The Air Raid Warden sometimes came round to test our gas masks. We put on our gas masks and he put a tin lid on the bottom to block off the air, then if it sucked into your face then the mask was OK, but I did not like this.

When the war started I was five years old, my dad must have felt guilty about not going into the war, and he would have liked to have gone into the RAF. So if he ever found any serviceman wandering about with nowhere to go he brought them home for tea. We found something even if it was only toast. During this period we had evacuees billeted on us. We had two that I remember; dad reckoned that under the stairs was the safest place in the house, so the evacuee and I went there if there was an air raid warning. I had to share a bed with the evacuee and she wet the bed, so I had a wet bed too. Eventually the parents took the evacuee back to London. We had another girl, she was Jewish her name was Beatrice 鈥� the whole family was billeted in the street> When she came she had long black ringlets which my mother was not impressed with because they had to be put in rags (to keep the curls). My mum could not cope with this, so she asked permission for the hair to be cut, which was agreed.

We had two French Canadian soldiers billeted on us. One was called Frank Dentremont, the other鈥� name I can鈥檛 remember. He asked my mum to get him some underwear because he had red flannel things. She found this because once she had got the new underwear she found the old red ones rolled into a ball and stuffed in the cupboard under the marble topped washstand.

Frank Dentremont was a single man, about the same age as my father. He was an orphan; he had no family, so we more or less adopted each other. He used to write to us and send us food parcels, and we wrote to him. He used to collect stamps and send them with presents to me. He sent this one parcel and there was a pale blue scarf in it. It had his regimental badge on it; I still have the scarf (at least my son has it). I thought that Frank was killed at Dieppe, but when we checked on the internet we found that he was killed in Italy. We found the details from the War Graves Commission (these are included with this story). Because he had no family his dog tag was sent to us. He was a very handsome man; I noticed this even though I was only eight.

I was sent on holiday to Guilsborough. My grandfather had a paper round there so he knew everyone. These people named Smith lived in Nortoft; they had children who delivered papers for Grandpa. While I was there we had a bomb dropped in Guilsborough. It blew in the windows in the back of the house and we were under the table. I thought it was great fun, mum and dad came over in the car next morning to get me back 鈥� how dare the Germans drop a bomb on darling daughter!

Dad had a workshop in the smallest bedroom of our house. There were benches on three sides and he mended radios and electrical appliances 鈥� this was his hobby. One particular time I was listening, he was talking about this man (a Lord and Earl) and he had a portable radio in his bedroom and he needed it mending. Dad mended the radio and took it back. While he was there talking to the man (it must have been morning), and while he was there a bright light shone into the room. So dad being a scientific man wanted to know where the light came from. He was told that it was on the grave of one of his ancestors and it was positioned so that when the sun rose it hit a crystal and reflected the light back into the room. I found out that the man was Earl Spencer (the current Earl鈥檚 grandfather). I wasn鈥檛 sure if I imagined it, but I have a friend who is 86 and I meet her on Fridays and we were talking about this and she said that she had seen it 鈥� so I knew that I wasn鈥檛 imagining it. A couple of years ago I went with another friend to Great Brington to look for the crystal and I found the graves where the Earl Spencer family were buried, but there was nothing. So I was a bit disappointed, but there was a village lady in the cemetery so I thought I would ask. She said 鈥淥h yes it was right. The crystal was on the grave of Lady Margaret, but it had been taken away to the house because of vandals鈥�.

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